CELEB Heather to star in vegan festival

HEATHER Mills, the former wife of Beatles legend Sir Paul McCartney, is set to return to her North East roots.

The celebrity couple split in an acrimonious divorce in 2008 which resulted in a multi-million pound settlement.

Heather, who was raised in Washington, is to appear on June 10 at the fourth Newcastle Vegan Festival.

Organiser Louise Pinchen, 23, from Cramlington , Northumberland, said: “We’ve been trying to get Heather to an event for a while now to talk about her vegan lifestyle and we’re absolutely delighted she has said yes. As we aren’t paying a fee and hold events in other parts of the country, we told Heather she could choose any which best suited her. But she insisted the only one she wanted to come to was in Newcastle.”

It’s quite a coup for Louise who single-handedly launched the festival in Newcastle in 2014 which has proved so popular that last year’s event attracted around 2,000 visitors.

She said: “I started the event because I’m a vegan and while there were vegan festivals in England, they were based down south. A lot of people came down from Edinburgh for the first Newcastle event and asked me to do one there which I did the second year.”

As well as an array of stalls, there will be a number of talks and Heather will give hers about her vegan lifestyle and her company VBites which sells vegan products.

On the festival’s website, Heather wrote: “How proud am I as a Geordie and fellow vegan to see such a festival appear in the heart of Northumberland.

“When I was a kid meat was considered the cornerstone of a good diet. Luckily for us it was too expensive, so though we felt deprived at the time, we were blessed, little did we know.

“Many years later when I became a vegan I realised that an alternate to meat would help others go through the transitional period to save their health, the animals, and the environment. Now, VBites Foods is the biggest meatless meat manufacturer in the world.”

The festival will be held at the Assembly Rooms, on June 10, from 10.30am to 4.30pm. Tickets cost £2. Heather Mills, who is set to return to her North East roots when she attends the fourth Newcastle Vegan Festival in June

“I love vinyl so much, the tactile nature, the ritual of it, looking at the sleeve... especially with the old albums and the liner notes – who played on them, the process of putting it on, the needle going on and the sound coming out” – Singer and musician Sir Elton John waxes lyricalabout vinyl records.